Perceived Guidance Counselor Role in Maintenance of Family Stability of Secondary School Teachers

ABSTRACT The study investigated the Guidance Counsellors’ roles in maintenance of family stability of secondary school teachers in Lokoja Education Zone of Kogi State. The study adopted a descriptive survey design in which five research questions were posed and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 probability level. The population of the study was 238 teachers, made up of 111 male teachers and 127 female teachers. The entire population of 238 was used as sample. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled, ‘Roles of Counsellors in maintaining Stability in the Family’ (RCMSF) was developed by the researcher. The instrument was face validated by three experts from Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The items were trial-tested on a sample of 20 teachers. The data obtained were computed using Cronbach Alpha statistics which gave an overall Alpha co-efficient value of 0.83. The research questions were analysed using Mean and Standard Deviation while t-test was used to analyse the null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The major findings of the study indicated that teachers perceived Guidance Counsellors perform roles in maintenance of family stability of secondary school teachers in the areas of finance, communication and sexual relationship of teachers; that the extent of family stability of male and female secondary school teachers was to a high extent, the extent Guidance Counsellors influence maintenance of family financial and communication stability of teachers was to a high extent while in sexual relationship of teachers, some agreed that it was to a high extent while others said it was to a low extent. Based on these findings, some counseling implications were highlighted and recommendations made. Among which are that counsellors need to intensify efforts in counselling teachers through educating them on financial management and organizing seminars on regular basis aimed at educating teachers on their responsibilities for family stability.